Caring for Your Lovebird's Beak

Video Transcript

" Hi! I’m Sarah and I’m here at Extra Care Animal Hospital today, and on behalf of expertvillage.com I’m going to tell you a little bit about owning a lovebird. As far as beak care goes, 99 times out of 100 birds beaks are pretty self-maintained. You can see that the bird will rub it’s beak on different surfaces of the cage. This helps keep it worn down as well as the bird just rubbing on itself will help keep it well. As well as the bird chewing things and rubbing the beak on itself will also help keep the beak round down. There generally only two cases in which we recommend trimming the beak. The first case will be a malocclusion. A malocclusion is misalignment of the bird’s beak. In the case of malocclusion, the bird’s beak can not properly wear down on itself and will overgrow. Sometimes in a case of malocclusion you will see the bottom part of the beak and the top part of the beak go the other, and it’ll just keep growing. If you see that in your bird, you definitely should take it to a qualified avian veterinarian as soon as possible. You’re avian vet will address the malocclusion. Sometimes malocclusions can also happen due to trauma. If the bird injures it’s beak, you will sometimes see it become misaligned and can sometimes overgrow. The only other time we recommend trimming the beak is if your bird is severely biting someone and injuring them. Sometimes trimming the beak can help to mellow the bird out a little bit while the biting behavior is being worked on. Trimming the beak is not the only solution for a biting bird. If you have a bird that is biting people severely and aggressively you should seek the help of a qualified avian veterinarian. Work on behavioral modification, because no one wants to have a bird in their household that is severely aggressive toward someone. Once again, trimming the beak for aggressive birds is generally only done for a short period of time while the aggressive behavior is being addressed. "